Charles Leslie Johnson was an extremely prolific
composer of ragtime and ragtime-related music.
Although not often mentioned in the group of the
"Big Three" – Joplin, Scott and Lamb – he deserves serious
recognition as a leading ragtime composer, not
only due to the volume of his work but the
enduring quality of a number of his compositions.

Charles Leslie Johnson was
born in Kansas City,
Kansas, on December 3, 1876, and stayed in
the Kansas City area his entire life. As a young
child, he started to play piano on his
neighbour's piano; by age nine, his parents
bought him his own piano: Jasen
and Tichenor (1978:38).

Johnson took lessons for 3 years with a Mr
Kreiser, but quit suddenly when his teacher
complained about his playing ragtime music: Jasen and Tichenor (1978:38).

Johnson joined several
guitar and mandolin clubs and organized several
string orchestras that played in the Kansas City
area. He also demonstrated pianos and music for
JW Jenkins & Sons Music Company who would
later publish a number of his compositions,
including two of his earlier pieces, Doc
Brown's Cake Walk: Kansas City Rag (below) and Scandalous
Thompson (below):
Jasen and Tichenor
(1978:38-39).

Photo of
Charles L Johnson from cover of Scandalous
Thompson (1899).

Blesh and
Janis (1966:119) describe Johnson's
explanation of the background to Doc
Brown's Cake Walk: Kansas City Rag (below) in these terms:

The number ... was named after an old,
eccentric colored fellow who wore a
swallowtail coat, carried a cane, and wore a
plug hat. He would cakewalk on the street
for a nickel or dime. Jenkins photographed
him for the cover.

According to Blesh and
Janis, the publisher of Doc Brown's Cake
Walk– JW
Jenkins – arranged
for Sousa's band to play the piece when Sousa
was passing through Kansas City.

According to Jasen and Jones
(2000:61), Johnson helped to arrange the
composition Peaceful Henry, written by
his friend Harry Kelly, although there is no
indication on the sheet music that Johnson was
the arranger (the sheet music for Peaceful
Henry is available here
from the Maine
Music Box).

Dill Pickles Rag (below) was so-named when
Johnson was working at Carl Hoffman Music
Company. Apparently, while composing the piece,
the company's bookkeeper asked Johnson what the
piece was called; the bookkeeper was carrying a
carton of pickles for his dinner, which prompted
to Johnson to say "I'll call it Dill Pickles
Rag": Jasen and Tichenor
(1978:39). According to Blesh
and Janis (1966:120), Dill Pickles Rag
was Johnson's favourite piece. According to
Hasse, Johnson's Dill Pickles Rag
appeared 31 times on 78 RPM recordings alone.

Johnson earned $30,000 for his song Sweet
and Low (below),
which was his biggest money-maker: Jasen and Tichenor (1978:39).

According to Jasen and Jones
(2000:60), four of Johnson's rags sold over 1
million copies during his lifetime. Blesh and Janis (1966:120)
indicate that Johnson sold his entire catalogue
(i.e., compositions published by his company) to
Rossiter in Chicago for a "fine price."

Johnson's "Indian" hit Iola was
first published as an intermezzo (below) with lyrics added to
the song (below) after
it became a hit. The irony is that the
composition was initially named after a town in
Kansas (Iola, Kansas)
and not an Indian (Jasen and
Tichenor 1978:39).

Even though James Scott
(1885-1938) and Charles L Johnson (1876-1950)
both lived in the Kansas City area most of their
entire lives, they apparently never met: Blesh and Janis (1966:119).

Pseudonyms:It
is believed that Johnson used the pseudonym
"Raymond Birch" for a number of his compositions
(see below). Recent research
by Bill Edwards, however, has shown that
Fannie B Woods, previously thought to have been
another pseudonym for Charles L Johnson, is in
fact a real (female) composer. As such, the
composition called Sweetness– previously attributed to Johnson
– is instead composed by a real
person named Fannie B Woods. Likewise, Bill
Edwards (and Nora Hulse) are currently
conducting research that would suggest that
Ethel Earnist, another pseudonym previously
attributed to Johnson (for the composition Peanuts:
A Nutty Rag (1911), availablehere
from the The
Lester S Levy Sheet Music Collection),
is also a real (female) composer. As such, I
have removed the entries that were below for Sweetness
and Peanuts from this essay.

Jasen and
Jones (2000:60) discuss Johnson's
willingness to advertise his services as an
arranger for rank amateurs, selling his services
to those who asked for them, despite his
commercial success as a composer in his own
right. One example they provide is the French
Auto Cylinder Oil Waltz written by Johnson
at the request of an oil company in Marshalltown,
Iowa.

At the time Blesh and Janis
were researching They All Played Ragtime
(first published in 1950), Johnson was still
alive, for the authors have this to say about
him at that time (Blesh and
Janis 1966:119):

He is a respected member
of ASCAP, and today, at seventy-four,
maintains an office at 806 Grand Avenue in
the Missouri City, where he is busy with
composing and arranging.

The
following list of compositions was compiled using
information from the Charles
L Johnson papers at the Kansas City Public
Library and other sources. If I am able to
obtain copies of any of the compositions below
that are in the public domain, I will digitize
them and add them to the appropriate tables above
(many of the post-1923 works are likely still
protected by copyright).